


lab rat blues

by patrokla



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Character Study, Las Vegas Era, M/M, Mid-Canon, in which boris contemplates theft and love and comes to think maybe they're the same thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 15:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21079211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrokla/pseuds/patrokla
Summary: He could watch Theo do just about anything.





	lab rat blues

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as meta about the Mountain Goats and Theo/Boris, and turned into a sort of songfic character study set to the Mountain Goats song "Lab Rat Blues," and now it's been turned into something vaguely resembling fic.
> 
> Warnings for canon-typical alcohol abuse, suicidality, and nonsense. Boris' and Theo's views on many things, including Tolkien, do not represent my own.
> 
> Epigraphs and title from "Lab Rat Blues."
> 
> Russian translation by elska84 available [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/8792319)!

_I saw you and I sank into your eyes._   
_I’m not going to apologize,_   
_ because you with your own hands,_   
_ made the whole world._

_  
You can’t fool me, I’m on to you now._

_\--_

They’re drunk one evening in Boris’ room, maybe a few weeks after Theo blacked out and showed Boris the painting. Boris keeps thinking about it, because it’s worth a lot of money, but also because he’s fucking thrilled at the fact that Theo, who has this increasingly tarnished innocent shine, has been carrying around this stolen painting - this huge secret crime - for years. He’s delighted by it, in the way that it can be delightful to learn new things about people whom you thought you knew absolutely.

And so they’re drunk and lying on his bed, which never became _their_ bed in the same way that their bed at Theo’s house did, because despite Larry and Xandra’s many flaws Boris knows they’ll never stumble into the house in the middle of the night and try to beat anyone to death. And he’s watching Theo, who’s very earnestly talking about Tolkien or something. He’s drunkenly animated and absently petting Popchik, and Boris knows that _objectively_, Theo’s scrawny and starting to look like Boris in the way that Boris is a poster child for parental neglect and the sort of moral depravity that the reform movements of the late 19th century went on about. He knows this, but couldn't care less.

He’s drunk as well, although less so than Theo, maybe because he holds it better, or maybe because he makes sure to drink less on the nights that Theo gets a certain look that manifests in a way Boris is learning intimately. It’s not like he goes around worrying about Theo 24/7, because Christ, who has that kind of time, and he’s not the type to do that, but he does keep an eye out. Anyway, Theo’s unsettling urge to try and get run over by nonexistent traffic is just a single facet of him. Right now there’s another one catching Boris’ eye: Theo’s unstoppable desire to be right all the time (in this case, to be right about the superiority of the Lord of the Rings to some scifi novel Boris has been reading).

Boris doesn’t much care to defend his own book, but he can and will go to the mats over what he believes is Tolkien's overly simplistic moral universe. Tonight, however, he’s content to lay back and watch Theo ramble. He could watch Theo do just about anything. Theo interests him in a way that's self-perpetuating. Here’s Theo, who makes him tea and sleeps next to him, and who has witnessed some of his bloodiest moments, but in a way that makes Boris feel obliquely comforted, rather than weak. And here’s Theo, who has stolen a priceless painting, who has kept it secret from most of the world seemingly through the grace of God rather than any particular talent in secret-keeping.

The truth of it is that he’s never had anyone like Theo in his life. Like most people, Boris has spent his life fundamentally alone on some level, and he’d expected things to continue that way until - well, possibly forever. His life has not lent itself to more than the shallowest of camaraderies, the slack bond shared between people who get fucked up together. But Theo’s grabbed him, reinvented him, _loved_ him in a way he didn’t know he could experience. And sure, Theo is trapped, much like him, and hurt in both similar and different ways, but there’s more to it than just being stuck in the same foxhole. There’s a kindness and love without that sense of impermanence that Boris felt in Papua New Guinea, in Karmeywallag, in every place he’s left behind. There's something deep and easy about being with Theo. There’s a life to be lived here (or anywhere) with him. Boris can feel it.

And the thing that surprises Boris, that truly surprises him, is that for all of the ways that Theo is so clearly afraid of the world, he’s also a tenacious motherfucker. Sure, he tries to kill himself, but only when blacked out, and in the mornings he faces the hangover and drags Boris to school and carries out whatever act of petty theft they need to feed and entertain themselves for the night.

After everything he’s gone through, Boris thinks he must be entitled to the occasional bolt of despair. God knows Boris would likely be worse in Theo’s situation, because Theo had _had_ a good life before. He'd had a mother who loved him, a caretaker who, Theo says, didn’t drink, and then he’d lost it all. Boris has never had anything to lose, and so whatever predicament he finds himself in can only be a lateral move at worst.

And yes, there are things Theo does that irritate Boris. See: his stance on Tolkien, and his incompatibly bleak view of humanity. See: the way he gets prickly if Boris won’t trash talk Larry and Xandra. See: the way he gets too concerned by Boris’ bruises sometimes, which will inevitably fade, and don’t need half the attention that Theo gives them. See: how Boris can't get it through Theo’s head, that to worry over something is to prolong the healing process, and often does nothing to lower the risk of infection. See: the blackouts, and even worse the times that he thinks Theo is only pretending to blackout. See: not the way that Theo lets Boris hold him in the dark, but the way Theo refuses to acknowledge that embrace in the morning.

In Boris’ bedroom, Theo has caught on to the fact that Boris is really just staring at him now through his hair, and he lowers his hands, the worst defensive impulses Boris has ever seen, and says, “stop fucking staring at me,” but he’s smiling, doesn’t really mean it, doesn’t care how Boris looks at him when they’re alone. He grabs the bottle of vodka and sprawls down next to Boris, and Boris hooks an arm around his neck in a ploy to grab the bottle from him, and in a ploy to keep Theo close to him. There’s a life to keep living here. He doesn’t want to lose it. The ceiling light filters in red through the sheets, and Theo’s hair shines a dull gold. And Boris doesn’t want to lose it.

\--

_Because you, with your own hands,_   
_ created everything._

_You can’t fool me anymore._   
  
_ I’m on to you now._

**Author's Note:**

> Original version with the song verses can be found [here](https://leguin.tumblr.com/post/188401269156/lab-rat-blues).


End file.
